Have you or your SO ever been laid off?

[ProspectiveBum]

With all the talk about the coming recession, downsizing, etc., I wonder how many of us have been laid off in our career? DW and I have been fortunate to have avoided layoffs thus far, but we're still young.

Edit: For those who have been laid off, and then went back to work, it'd be interesting to know how long it took to find another job.

 

[bbbamI]

I was laid off once in the '70s. It took about 4 months to find another job. DH was laid off once in 1986. It took him three months to get another job. It would have probably taken longer, but he went through a head-hunter agency.

 

[unclemick]

1969 - will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights. Anyone remember that one. Kobe Japan (sister city) was sending Care packages - the local Council of Churches soup kitchens were feeding 78,000 people a week. Took 6 weeks to land another aerospace job in Denver on Sky Lab. In 68 I was working the never to be built American SST which Congress canceled.

1992 (jan 1, 1993) - one of the many cutbacks(lower launch rate after Challenger) in Space Shuttle. That one was good thru today - although I did go back as a jobshopper twice - a tad over a year total time which cured me of the work idea - just working for large amounts of money sucks.

heh heh heh -

 

[Goonie]

I was fortunate to never have had to deal with being laid off. Worked part-time/temporary for the municipal gov't during HS, then got hired full-time the Monday after HS graduation. FIRE'd from there in April '07 after 30+ years. BIL and SIL have both dealt with layoffs several times...they both usually found another job fairly quickly, like in a matter of a few weeks or less.

 

[ziggy29]

No, neither of us yet. But my wife is [-]desperately selling her soul[/-] looking for a modest job with at least mediocre benefits in case it happens to me. The problem is that she put the job search on hold for most of this year thinking she had a good in with a job she'd really like to have (complete with county employee benefits). By the time that didn't happen and they hired someone else into it, it was August and the job market was on the verge of becoming a big fat zero...

 

[Zoocat]

No, but I was fired a couple of times in my youth. Once from Tastee Freeze when I was 17. Don't ask. And the other time from an accounting assistant position. Numbers have never been my friends.

 

[kyounge1956]

I was laid off from two jobs, both in the early 1980's. I was then working in Landscape Architecture, which is what I got my college degree in. I don't remember how long it took me to find a stop-gap job. I worked temporary assignments and eventually a part time job in a fabric store to keep the wolf away from the door. My next full-time job was on a land surveying crew with local government. I have been working for the City ever since (24 years next January), although I am no longer on the survey crew.

You could say I never got re-hired—I've never worked as a Landscape Architect again. There were a few LA positions that opened up during my early years with the City but they were all bond funded and would have evaporated after three years, so I didn't even apply for them.

 

[hankster]

I was laid off from a tractor manufacturing plant one week before our wedding. The show still went on and the marriage is going strong 31 years later

I found a crappy job two weeks later just to put food on the table(barely)

1977 ended with my starting what turned out to be a lifelong career. I decided to get into the manufacturing of something that's always in demand - electric power. Let's see 'em outsource THAT to India

 

[OAG]

I was was not but DW was, once, but she decided to RE at that point, and I agreed, she had only taken the job to feed 4 Teenagers while we were living in the Washington DC area back in the mid to late 70's through the late 80's.

 

[Khan]

Me: never

Previous SO: once, when restaurant closed

 

[tangomonster]

My husband was laid off from his pharmaceutical rep job about fifteen years ago (company was bought by another). He tried in vain to get another pharm job, but to no avail even though he had fifteen years of experience and a grad science degree. The pharmaceutical companies preferred young women who had just graduated from college, without necessarily even a science degree or sales experience----their looks and perkiness were more important (it has now been documented that pharm companies are recruiting from the cheerleading squad! ).

Although I am currently furious at my husband that he wouldn't bail out of the stock market when I wanted to (August to October 2007), I do have to admit that he didn't stand on ceremony like some other people who hold out for better jobs that more closely approximate what they last had. He saw that he wasn't going to be hired for pharm sales and took an inside customer service job that paid 60% less and confined him to a cubicle, when he was used to the freedom of outside sales.

And although we had planned to FIRE at 57, we actually did it at 52, so all wasn't lost (sure did miss the company car, though!).

 

[sweetana3]

Would have said never but husband was just reallocated (laid off) yesterday from a big Pharma IT position.

 

[tangomonster]

Sweetana, is that the new word---reallocated? So what is he allocated to maybe these companies need to spend more time figuring out how to run them well than coming up with euphemisms for being laid off!

Last I heard the term was "right sized." Also knew the term "made redundant" from watching British TV shows.

I'm very sorry for you and your husband. Will he at least get a good severance package? And how do his job prospects look?

 

[Walt34]

DW was "downsized" twice. First time was from a defense contractor that made guided missile navigation stuff where she did bookkeeping/accounting work. She then got a job about a month later with an engineering company doing much the same thing but left that when the accountant who hired her quit because the company wanted him to do accounting stuff that would have cost him his CPA had it been discovered.

She then got a job with the FDA and left there after 8 years when we moved. When she finishes her BA next spring she intends to look for a job then.

 

[DallasGuy]

Yes, got laid off from one of the airlines in '94. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me since it gave me the freedom to try contract work and I doubled my income within 2-3 months. I've done contract work ever since then. I'd probably still be working today if I hadn't gotten laid off back then.

 

[freebird5825]

Once, in the early years after college graduation. i worked for a small software company for 1 year, had just completed a huge project with a very happy customer, and got laid off for New Years'.
it was completely out of the blue. it turns out i was scheduled for replacement when they hired a new guy, who I trained. i was making a whole $5 per hour in 1980, so it wasn't about money. the whole thing just floored me. i never figured out what happened. and they never told me.

 

[Texas Proud]

I forgot one and voted wrong...

Got laid off a crap job at a discount store when 17, but that does not count..

Worked 4 years at a big 8 firm and was told to go looking... I did not follow the leader and did not want to change... found a job the day they 'laid' me off...

Got laid off when the bank I worked failed... was going to be hired by the new bank, but they screwed up and I got laid off... then they backdated my start date at the new bank so I was OK...

Laid off earlier this year from that bank after 15 years... some young 'management consultant' was hired in to manage the group and did not like the 'old' people around... slowly has gotten rid of most and I heard she got rid of two more with their last day the day after Christmas... seems she did not like some of us saying that her plans to change would not work... that we had tried it a couple of times and IT WOULD NOT WORK... well, new young people with no experience are working their tails off and for some reason...... can not get it to work

So, I voted two, but I would say really three.... but only one time did I get unemployment...

 

[aenlighten]

Working in a cyclical changing industry, many times

Increasingly so later in my career. During industry meltdowns (2), company liquidations (2), and recessions (2). Once I took a contracting job after not finding anything for 6 months. The last time I would no longer accept contract work and never did find anything. Eventually you end up in the position of accepting a 30% or more cut and decide it simply isn't worth the bother.

 

[FIREd]

I was laid off in 2002 (company liquidation after venture capital dried up). It took me 4 months to find another job (though it wasn't as well paid as the job I had lost). My wife has never been laid off. In 2005 her company was on shaky grounds financially so she decided to be proactive and found a new job just weeks before the company failed.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Once really early in my career. I was so young thought it was great to get unemployment Went to the bar had a great time..got a new job worked out great.

 

[blessed]

kyounge1956- I was also a landscape architect. Grad of 1977, got a job amazingly 2 weeks after graduation (mostly civil eng.) Moved up to a big E/A firm and lost my job in 1993. Consulted for 4 years until the developer took me on part time, then full time. Retired 2006

 

[Westernskies]

1983, 1984, 1985 I was just a few years out of college and always the low man on the seniority totem pole. Tough times, trying to get a career off the ground and make ends meet on unenjoyment. Did some contract work, bounced around the job market for a few months. At the time it was very frustrating, like a lot of 20-somethings, I had almost no savings, what seemed like big monthly bills, and no credit to speak of. I wanted to work, but didn't want to move. Eventually landed a good career track-position in Industrial Sales. Still with the company 23 years later. Looking back, It wasn't as bad as it seemed at the time.

 

[Livefree]

yes once in 1991, on a Friday, got a call from the competitor on Monday and was hired. Lost my job at the end of '03 and was out of work all of '04 and part of '05...It was the longest break I've had in almost 30 years, and I loved it! Didn't really look for work..now back to working for a large company close by... I'm a Technology worker.

 

[growing_older]

In technology, it's kind of common.

1983 narrowly missed one. Left a company for a new job and 2 weeks later my entire division (about 100 people) was laid off.

1986 1987 narrowly missed two more. Company cut about half the people but not my half. Then later eliminated everyone on a product line (not my product line). The layoffs continued after I left.

1990 1991 1992 (finally got me. three times with one company!) worked for the same company and it laid off the small (10 people) staff in my city three times, but gave us generous notice and promised to try to re-hire us if we kept working. Twice I stayed and got re-hired. The third time, I found a new job before they re-hired us. That lasted about a year before they went out of business altogether.

1995 Big Company (1000's of tech employees) had three layoffs in 12 months. We would come in to work and all computer access would be turned off. About noon they would announce the layoff and by 2PM everyone affected would be escorted out and they would turn computers on again. What a horrible way to do it. I left for a new job before I got laid off, but only a month after I left my old division was eliminated from the VP down. Only 1 guy (the Senior VP) remained employed.

1998 Company was sold and my product was eliminated. Laid off as an employee but stayed on for a year as a contractor working on the "eliminated" product. Pay was much better as a contractor but that job was time limited.

2000 company laid off all techncial people in my location. Job market was bad and I settled for a new job at considerably lower pay. Some colleagues went 2+ years without work.

2004 Company had 14 layoffs in 4 years, but I wasn't part of any of them. Six months after I left (fearing they would eventially get around to me, too) they closed the local office entirely but offered about half the folks jobs 1500 miles away.

2007 Company laid off 20%, but again I wasn't included.

 

[youbet]

1975 - laid off from job as night shift QC manager in a metal working plant owned by a company downsizing and which, in fact, ceased to exist within two years. It was a good paying job in a union plant. My son was six weeks old. Bummer. Found another, but lower paying, job six weeks later.

1979 - laid off from a job as night shift litho dept supervisor at another metal working plant when the owners decided to close after a prolonged strike. Decided to change industries.

2006 - laid off after 27 yrs at an electronics/telecom company. Nice severance package. Collected unemployment benefits for six months. FIRE'd!

A question to the group...... If my portfolio drops another 30% - 40% and I decide I need to go back to work, will that count as being laid off from being FIRE'd? Or will that be getting fired from being FIRE'd?